Riga Opera Festival to return after three-year pause

RIGA - After a three-year pause, the Latvian National Opera and Ballet (LNOB) is organizing the Riga Opera Festival again from June 8 to July 1, LNOB spokeswoman Irbe Treile informed LETA. 

The festival will feature new productions staged at the LNOB over the past two seasons, as well as a gala concert. 

The festival's program includes Giuseppe Verdi's operas Simon Boccanegra and Aida, Gioachino Rossini's opera Cinderella, Janis Kalnins'  opera Hamlet and Don Juan by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Guest conductors will be performing at the festival along with LNOB conductors. 

For the first time, the program of the Riga Opera Festival will also include ballet productions - Swan Lake by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Dracula by Wojciech Kilar and Pawel Chynowski and Nijinski, a contemporary ballet performance by the choreographer Marco Goecke, based on the music by Frederic Chopin and Claude Debussy.

The gala concert will take place at the LNOB on June 30 and at the Mitava concert hall in Jelgava on July 1.